75yrs wed ...af ter a dancef loor battle for my Norah
‘I managed to get her in the end’
WHEN they first locked eyes, King George VI was still on the throne and Sir Winston Churchill was Prime Minister.
Now a devoted couple have celebrated a remarkable 75 years of marriage – after falling in love when they spotted each other on a dancefloor.
Allan and Norah McLeod married on February 1, 1946, on the bride’s 20th birthday. Today they are nearing their 100th birthdays, but they are still as happy as when they met when Norah was a teenager.
Mrs McLeod, 95, born on the Isle of Wight, fell in love with Mr McLeod, from Port Glasgow, Renfrewshire, during the Second World War.
Mr McLeod, 98, watched his future wife dancing with another soldier and a fight nearly broke out over her. She had picked up moves such as the jitterbug from US troops stationed in the West Country.
The couple tied the knot in London after the war ended, in a registry office ceremony.
As they celebrated 75 years together – known as a second diamond wedding – Mrs McLeod said: ‘Allan never wanted to dance – he preferred to play the musical instruments. But I had learned the jitterbug while I was stationed in Cornwall with the Americans, so I used to enjoy dancing.’
Mr McLeod said: ‘That’s how I ended up meeting Norah. I remember when I first saw her – she was dancing with another soldier and he was going to fight with me over her. But I managed to get her in the end.’
He worked as an anti-aircraft gunner during the Blitz, while his future wife worked as a cook at a barracks.
Mrs McLeod recalled the fear of flying bombs, and said: ‘You would hear them buzzing and then it would stop and you knew they were going to come down. One dropped on a barracks not far from where we were stationed.’
They moved to Port Glasgow after the war. Mr McLeod played clarinet and saxophone in a jazz band and worked at a shipyard, while mother-of-four Mrs McLeod was a housewife.
They bought a haberdashery shop in the 1960s and worked there until they retired in 1990, and moved to the Isle of Wight.
In 2013 they returned to Scotland and live in a retirement complex in Gourock, Renfrewshire.
They have three great-greatgrandchildren, ten great-grandchildren, and seven grandchildren, and use iPads to keep in touch with their family. Their son Allan, 67, said: ‘They are both mentally sharp as a tack. They are so happy together.’
The couple have received their first Covid vaccination.
Daughter Margaret, 69, said: ‘They have been wonderful during this past year, adhering to the rules of Covid and being confined to their home.’
‘Mum and Dad enjoy being taken out for coffee, sitting watching the boats and swans or going for a wee drive to Largs, and they love spending time with their family.’